A change of focus for New York-based social app developer Albumatic – and a change of name: introducing Koa.la

Social media managers monitoring new social ideas might like to know that New York-based photo-sharing startup Albumatic has a new name – and a new direction.

Headwinds and new ideas

Launched in February this year, Albumatic (now re-named Koa.la) originally focused on building apps designed to capture and share events as they happened. If a bunch of friends decide to do a rock gig in a garage, Albumatic let them photograph it and instantly share it with other nearby Albumatic users. They could then come over and take their own shots for sharing.

Social media managers who think this is a pretty neat idea may be surprised that the startup’s co-founder, Adam Ludwin, and his team sensed from the outset that there were “headwinds” impeding the chances of the app exploding into a major hit. So they started developing a new one and came up with a photo-sharing app that integrates with messaging firm Kik’s new “Cards” platform.

And there’s more to come – Albumatic/Koa.la has already built three apps which integrate with Cards, but the team is planning to build more apps for a range of other messaging platforms.

The next big thing?

A measure of the success of the change of emphasis can be gleaned in a singular fact: within 22 hours of the release of Koa.la’s ‘Costume Party’ app (a game which lets users share drawn-over snaps of themselves or their friends on Kik), it had attracted a million players. Today, that figure stands at 4 million – and Ludwin believes it’s on course to attract 10 million by year’s end.

Canny social media managers might want to take note of something: Ludwin and his team sense that messaging platforms are The Next Big Thing in social media. As for the original Albumatic app, it hasn’t been mothballed – the Koa.la team will go on supporting it but they’ll stop developing it.

As Ludwin puts it:

“The Albumatic app is doing fine in terms of numbers. The truth that everyone knows and no one wants to say is that if you’re a mobile app, you’re either growing very, very fast and you’re one of the three that matter, or you’re one of everyone else. Why overexert ourselves in such a highly saturated market when we had this wide open opportunity that we could really execute on?”